1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate generally to commerce within a social networking system. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate to managing commerce-related electronic messages between users of a social networking system.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Internet users find it increasingly convenient to research, find, and purchase goods online. eCommerce websites sell a variety of consumer goods ranging from car parts to groceries to electronics. In addition to the countless retail companies that are currently on-line, private sellers can also sell their goods on the Internet. Building and maintaining an ecommerce website, however, is often a daunting and expensive undertaking for many small businesses and private sellers.
Rather than building an ecommerce website of their own, private sellers and small businesses commonly utilize the convenience of a social networking system in order to find and organize groups of buyers and sellers who are interested in the same types of products. In this way, social networking systems serve as a digital marketplace, where users can buy and sell goods. For example, a social networking system may host groups that users can use to buy goods from and sell goods to other group members. Utilizing these social networking groups, buyers and sellers can post new goods for sale, communicate among themselves, and make purchases.
Buyers and sellers may communicate with each other via a social network for a variety of purposes. For example, a potential buyer may have a question about the condition of a product, the advertised price of the product, or whether the seller is willing to accept a lower price. Accordingly, the potential buyer can send one or more messages to a product seller via the social networking system by utilizing the messaging services typically built into the social networking system. A problem arises however, when the product seller is offering multiple products for sale, or is receiving multiple messages regarding the product or products the product seller has offered for sale. In a short amount of time, the product seller may have a message box full of questions about products, but with little contextual information indicating which product each message is referring to.
Additionally, a product seller may have a difficult time updating multiple potential buyers regarding changes or updates to items that are for sale. For example, the product seller may have to individually send an electronic message to each potential buyer to inform the potential buyer of the updated sale details. This process is obviously cumbersome and time consuming. Along the similar lines, if the product seller sells a particular product but fails to delete the original product posting, the product seller may continue to receive message inquiries regarding the product, even though the product has already been sold. This again results in wasted time and frustration for the product seller.
Thus, there are several disadvantages to current methods for managing commerce-related electronic messages via a social networking system.